Introduction

Networking isn’t as mysterious as it is made out to be. It is
simply talking intentionally to someone who could potentially help you in
business.

That’s it.

It means being conscious of our interactions with others. You should
seek to understand people/relationships better so you don’t miss out on
a good relationship, a chance to help someone, or a chance to get help
yourself. It’s about being aware of how you come off to others. It’s
about building community.

Asking “Why is networking important in business?” is like asking “Why
are relationships important in business?” Networking is simply the initial stage in your relationship with others.

Networking has the capability to build walls, but it can also open doors
and help those with less privilege. You should always be aware that
networking at its best is still a closed network, and doing your best to open it up as much as possible and lift others up changes lives.

I co-founded Binomial, a company that makes a GPU-friendly image
compressor called Basis that improves download sizes and performance in
apps. I started my business a few years ago. When I started, I had two
months of savings until I had to get a job, no experience, and no good plans.

Networking was the key. I had hundreds and hundreds of
conversations with potential customers, other entrepreneurs, experienced businesspeople, experienced programmers, and more.

I believe that was one of the single biggest factors in getting me to
where I am now—running a successful company that serves some of the
biggest names in games, virtual reality, mapping applications, interactive web apps, and more.

What are different ways to network?

“What are all the ways to meet humans?” is a similar question! Sometimes
we have a goal in mind when we interact with people. For instance, if
you want to make friends you can play video games with you might frequent
an arcade or video game conference. If you want to date, you might go to
a bar or a singles mixer. If you want to organize a volunteer effort,
you might try being vocal about that effort while you volunteer. You
could just go to a public park for each of these efforts and start
talking to strangers, but you might be more effective (and bother others
less!) with a more thoughtful approach.

In our case we want to build a tech business, one that is a positive
force in our communities with happy customers that allows us to make a good living.

It’s helpful to zoom out for an overview, and I’ll go in more depth later:

Events: either online or in person

Conferences

Local professional events

Social events people in the industry frequent

Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr…): both posting to and interacting with people one-on-one

Organizing your own events and communities: big or small, public or private

… and more!

A note on mentoring & giving back

I am passionate about making sure there’s a healthy balance between
“giving” and “getting” in networking. The exact balance may differ
between someone first starting out and someone who is very established, but should always be kept in mind.

You should care about others and help others selflessly. I believe you
should do this without an explanation needed. You should do this even if it didn’t help your business—but it will.

You shouldn’t start all your networking conversations with “Hello, I
need these things, can you do them for me?” There are lots of layers to
why that’s a wrong blanket approach, which I’ll dive into later, but
hopefully you have an intuition for why it’s not optimal. Since you
wouldn’t converse selfishly, you similarly shouldn’t seek out
conversations selfishly, based on how much you think people could help you.

If you seek to create value for others, others will create value for you. Nothing is more powerful than seeing reciprocity in action.

During the first year of running my business, I ran several fairly large
charitable initiatives to help others. I mentored people one-on-one,
organized a mentoring program, and taught free classes in the community.

I thought these were purely charitable initiatives that wouldn’t affect
the business. I was very, very wrong. In fact, helping others is one of the single biggest drivers for new business I’ve ever had.

Even having done it, it is difficult to fully measure the effect of it.
People talk, word gets around, you build a reputation.

But for me, it goes deeper than that: Balancing my time between helping
others and being helped—and helping others without expecting anything
in return—feels good for the soul, and makes you a better human being in your interactions with the people who can help you.

If all you do is take, others will notice. You’ll do worse in business and be a less happy human being.

Considerations for different industries and cultures

Expectations are different across industries and cultures.

Some industries will be more active on certain social media platforms.
Some conferences and events may be more or less popular. Some industries
have more prominent open source projects than others. Some industries
are more used to networking with small business owners than others. Some
may have more private events you need to search out, others may have many public events.

Industries vary not only in their tangible reality but also in their
intangible cultures. In video games, for instance, the culture is
usually very casual—people often show up in t-shirts and jeans, go
out to drink beer, and socialize a lot outside of work. If you show up
in a suit and speak with a formal tone, you’ll be seen as strange—but in other industries that won’t be out of place.

Make sure you assess the culture of the industry you want to target.

Making a good first impression

Set yourself up for success in a relationship by nailing the first impression, online or offline.

Communicating via dress and appearance

We don’t talk about fashion nearly enough in the tech industry. It is a
well-studied form of communication in itself. Many pretend to be
indifferent to it, but because we are human there are still norms, and
those who are indifferent are either conforming to the norms unconsciously or at a disadvantage without realizing it.

I was a stylist at a clothing store for years. I would dress my clients
for job interviews, work, promotion conversations, and launch events. I’d
form long term relationships with them and watch just how big of an impact their clothes & appearance had on their career.

Clients often started from a place of believing “Clothes are so superficial.
I don’t like this, I don’t want to care about such superficial things! People should like me for me!”

No one can know your whole life story. Even your closest confidants only
know it in a rough outline compared to its actual detail. Your
performance of you is a compression of everything you are and have
experienced.

Your physical presentation is a compression about the compression. It helps
other people understand how you expect to be related to. Your project has a README irrespective whether you want to be read or not.

Taking control of your first impression is not bowing down to the
expectations of others and losing sight of your identity—it’s
accepting this reality of the world, being knowledgeable about it, and
being deliberate in how you want to come off to others. (And sometimes,
it means refusing to conform, with intentionality.)

The key is simply being educated—we should never be opposed to
learning about our world. I’ll also include practical, easy-to-follow
tips for people who don’t want to study this in-depth.

Tips:

Dress a notch or two more professionally than the average person in
the group you’re talking to. Generally, be cautious about getting
more casual than “business casual.” Remember that a business owner
is not held to the same standard as an employee, and dressing a
bit more professionally sets you apart and commands respect while
still fitting in. (This advice also works for employees looking to get promoted: look the part you’re trying out for.)

Maintain your clothes appropriately. They are a professional tool.

Hair matters. Again, get a professional to help if possible—a
hair stylist or barber will know what to do, and can adjust the
look to how much effort you want to put into maintaining it while
still keeping it good looking. You can help your stylist pick
appropriate looks for you by showing them photos of any styles you
like, and by telling them what your industry is or what the occasion you’re preparing for is.

Skincare also matters. Study skincare routines, and even if you’re
going for a no-makeup look you might consider makeup. Skincare and
proper makeup can make a big impact on clearing up blemishes,
smoothing out skin, and highlighting good features so people focus
on you and you look good & polished—not distracted by that red
spot on your face. Once again, professionals know this area best.
For makeup, Sephora and MAC are both examples of stores with
stylists walking around, happy to give advice—you can watch
YouTube and read extensively, or you can just take an hour to get higher quality advice.

Fit is hands-down the most important thing for clothing. If you take
one thing away from this section, remember that. If you have an
unusual body shape or height, consider getting a tailor. Try on
lots of clothes until you find ones that fit. Fit is everything.

Whenever possible, get styled by a professional. This does not need
to be expensive. Department stores like Nordstrom have experienced
professionals who are happy to give you help. (This is generally
free with the expectation that you’ll buy some of the clothes.)
Stitchfix is an example of a styling service that is purely
online. You will not outperform a professional at styling
yourself, for the same reason that a fashion stylist is unlikely
to run your tech business better than you would. Professional
stylists are students of subtlety in presentation and have honed that ability for years.

Know the norms; break them judiciously

What about breaking the rules and going against social norms in
appearances? As a woman in a heavily male-dominated industry, I know all
about going against norms in this sense. Staying within norms helps
insulate you from discrimination, but selectively transgressing can make you memorable in a good way.

The general advice is to stick mostly with the norm, but go against it
in one way or slowly over time. The advanced advice is to get educated
about fashion and how you present so that you can go against lots of norms in deliberate, intentional ways.

Consider this pervasive example from the tech industry:

The norm: Male-dominated, t-shirt and jeans

Good outfits which slightly tweak the norm:

Masculine look:

Dark good quality t-shirt that fits well, dark jeans that fit well, and leather dress shoes that can work with a casual look

Presenting as a professional online

In person, someone only has so many things to go off of to judge you
before they talk with you. Your dress, your appearance, body language.

But online there’s so much more! You can fully expect someone to at
least glance at your avatar or profile before responding to you, and
many people will do a Google search as well. Let’s touch on making a
good first impression—before you even get to talk to someone!— online.

Website

You should have a website for your company, and one for yourself as
well! Even if your company hasn’t gotten any customers or hasn’t made
any money, even if it’s an early idea, that website can really help you land those initial deals.

This is another opportunity for you to improve your results by
consulting with a professional. A designer can help you create (or
select) a site appropriate to your industry, business model, stage in company development, marketing strategy, and so on.

Some high-level website tips:

The general design of your website should communicate
professionalism. Design also communicates the type of industry
you’re in or even how established you are. Early in my business, I
was told that my company’s website looked a lot like a personal
blog as opposed to a professional, established company—that
couldn’t have been good for business! Just like you should be
intentional about the extent to which you don’t conform with
fashion, you should be selective about how your website would
stand out from peers in your industry.

Make it obvious and explicit how a first-time visitor engages with
you. What is your process? Can they do a free evaluation of your
product? How can they contact you? What happens after they contact
you? What are the steps from contacting you to purchasing? Who do
you respond to (are you open to working with both small and big
companies)? Following this advice can completely transform your
business—you may be surprised at how many people don’t want to
reach out if they’re not sure what’ll happen next or when they can expect to hear back.

Remove barriers to getting to talk to you. Especially in the early
stages of a company, when you are optimizing for learning about
customers, you should facilitate conversations in as many ways as
possible.

Logos logos logos! Put company logos of customers you’ve worked with
on your website if you have them, front and center, easy to see.
If you don’t have permission to do this but have customers, describe them in as much detail as you can.

Highlight and amplify your the credentials of your team. Have you
spoken at conferences (especially about your business)? Have you
worked at well-known companies in the past? Have you done some
impressive work? Citing these will help you build trust with your
customers, and provides an icebreaker for initial conversations.

Crafting a good social media presence

There are lots of social media platforms: Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat,
Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. Each network has a different userbase,
encourages different user behavior, and attracts different kinds of
people and industries.

Being active on a social media account can be a significant time
investment. Be intentional about how you spend this time; you probably
do not want to be open an account literally everywhere. I sell a B2B
engineering product in the game industry. Twitter works very well in my space since a lot of technology professionals use it.

You should be mindful of the first impression a user will have when
encountering you on a social network: your profile, description, and the content you post.

A corporate presence on a social media account is very different than a
personal account. You almost certainly want a personal account that
keeps in mind your company’s audience is watching; whether you should
also have a corporate presence is a separate question. Some people have
more success with this, some people have less—I think it depends
again on your industry and customer base. Do your customers feel a need
to trust and like you, or do they just want company updates? There’s no harm in getting a company account to test how well that does.

You can choose to not follow the below advice and still be successful—
just like with clothing choices outside norms, the key to success is
acting with intentionality. You should be educated about online
dynamics, social norms, and the first impression different behaviors
give off. These tips are meant to be easy-to-follow, safe guidelines.

Social media first impression tips:

Ensure your recent posts generally include something about your industry or business. For instance, my
pinned tweet is always about my business. When I first started,
I’d make sure at least 50% of my posts were about my product,
work, or industry. It’s still at about that ratio these days,
though I’m not so deliberate about that anymore. Keep in mind that
this ratio varies depending on industry and social media
platform—for instance, on LinkedIn you might want to keep that
ratio closer to 100%. A high signal-to-noise ratio tends to help
converting interested users into followers when your content
happens to end up in front of them, for example via social
amplification like retweets. It says “Yes, you are in the right
place; following me will get you more of what you are interested in.”

Just like in fashion, you can go against the norms thoughtfully if you
understand the reasons they exist and what your actions
communicate.

Pause and think before posting. Some social media platforms (ahem, Twitter, ahem) are known for
negativity and ranting. Your
professional presence on social media is equivalent to you
speaking to others in-person at a tech meetup. Would a stranger
feel comfortable walking up and opening a conversation with you
based on what they overheard?

Present your business as overall stable and doing well, at
all stages. If your business looks like it is struggling or you look needy and desperate, potential customers will back away.

What if you’re not stable or doing well? There is a temptation to
bluster or shade the truth in business. You should never
compromise your ethics and you should be open about failures, but
decide when and how to do this. You can talk about failures
without dwelling on them. Do so in a way that makes you appear
strong and positive, or feel free to address them only once you’re in a better place.

Be authentic, particularly on personal accounts. Part of social media
is about building trust, showing that you’re a likable person who
is nice to work with. You should feel free to have your personality and voice shine on your account.

If you need a private outlet that you would not feel comfortable
with customers seeing, make an intentionally discrete account for
use with close confidants, and check privacy settings carefully.

Don’t forget about helping others. Social media is a powerful tool
for helping others and giving back, and doing this benefits us all.

Other online first impressions

Online communities: Slack groups, open source communities, etc.
People are watching you interact in online communities and watching what you contribute to them.

GitHub/code repositories: If open source is important to your
company, your code repository may be someone’s first impression
of your business. Have excellent documentation. Strongly consider
having a designed website for the project; Github’s branding makes
people associate your code with Github and their brand impressions
of Github, not with you. Make sure the person can get a good sense
of what it does from a 6-second skim of the description. Have an
easy to build/pre-built demo or sample code. If you accept
contributions, make it clear how others can submit toward it.
Treat all web presences of your company with the same seriousness that you would treat your website’s home page.

Creating helpful and meaningful content

Creating content is an amazing way to get people to come to you!

Speaking at local events: Events relevant to your industry may
be plentiful locally, depending on where you live. They’ve been
really helpful for me! Resources like meetup.com can help you find
events. You can also browse social media and ask people you know
in the industry for recommendations. Speaking at an intimate local
events can be nicer than speaking at a conference because there’s
much less pressure—the groups are typically pretty small and if
you want to speak you can just message the organizer and ask!
We’ll talk a little bit about how to make “asks” in the coming
sections.

Speaking at conferences: I started getting invitations to
conferences once I built up enough of a social media presence and
had speaking at local events under my belt, but you can also
submit at an application to speak at these. Conferences are
excellent for building credibility and are especially useful for
building credibility with developers if you sell to engineers.

Blogging: You can have a company blog or a personal blog. A lot
of the advice on social media first impressions applies here.
Blogs can be very good for PR, depending on your industry—for
instance, getting blog posts featured in prominent publications or
on aggregation sites like Hacker News has driven a lot of business
to my company, and is something not possible with a social media
post. I recommend sharing all blog posts through your social media
accounts.

Mailing list: A mailing list delivers exclusive content, which
isn’t available to the world at large, and is therefore can be a
closer relationship than just interacting publicly over social
media. You can send updates or newsletters via a mailing list;
offering people the option of signing up for it is an excellent
way to see who is interested and build a closer-knit community.

Podcasts, online conferences, and online events: Either being a
guest or hosting your own podcast can be great for PR. Online
conferences are very similar but usually include video and chat
(think: webinars). These all have a lot in common with local
events—being included either means just building up your social
media presence and getting an invite or reaching out directly to
the organizers. Interview podcasts in particular structurally need
to have new guests to continue running the show, so don’t be shy about pitching yourself to them; you’re helping them out!

Online communities: There are so many! From public forums to
private slack groups, you can also contribute here and post content.

Hosting your own events and communities: We’ll touch on this later!

Making direct asks

No matter your charm, success, social media following size, or amount of
brilliant content posted—you will sometimes need to make the first
move. In sales, this is called an “ask”—you’re straightforwardly requesting that someone do a specific something on your behalf.

The power of the informational interview

You may have your own preferred way to network, but this is one of my favorite ways to break the ice.

An informational interview has a simple theme and intent: Person 1 asks
Person 2 to coffee or a video chat, and Person 1 spends that time asking
questions and learning from Person 2. It is not a direct sales call.
Neither party expects immediate business as a result of the meeting; it
is just about learning.

I have participated in hundreds of informational interviews, on both
sides of the table. They are fun to do, easy to line up, and extremely helpful.

This is basically how I learned business—I’d ask experienced business
people out to coffee. They’re an excellent way to learn: business,
design, coding, any topic! The internet has lots of resources to learn
from, but having someone with experience give you customized advice and
curated learning resources is invaluable.

It is also how I learned what not to do and what I didn’t want, to my
surprise. I’d sometimes ask someone I really admired out for coffee, and
realize that a path they went down or a decision they made was not as
ideal as it seemed. One-on-one conversations are much more candid and
authentic than the more polished, selective view you get from reading
interviews. (Remember, the successful people you admire also struggle
with the tension between being authentic and making a good professional impression. You’ve likely only seen their highlight reel.)

Let’s not forget about customer interviews too! Doing informational
interviews with potential customers is an excellent idea—they’re much
easier to get than a sales call in the early stages of business, they
help shape your product to be better, and they can turn into real sales down the road.

Lastly, pay it forward and return the favor—be open to questions and
let people take you out for an informational interview!

How do you ask someone to an informational interview? Here are some
examples for asking over social media where your profile clearly
introduces yourself—if writing over e-mail or you’re not sure your
profile does the best job as an intro, add more context in the message text.

Student asking for chat

Hello,

I’m a student at Imaginary University and I’m really interested in
computer graphics. I really admire your work—I found your blog
post on particle systems so interesting! I would love to get a chance
to ask you some questions on getting a career in computer graphics and
what you do—would you have time for a 30-minute Skype chat
sometime?

Best,

Stephanie

[link to some kind of proof of work here—demos you’ve done, website, github, etc]

Transitioning careers

Hello,

I’m looking to transition into a career in web development (I’m
currently a photographer!) and I have learned so much from following
you on Twitter—your blog post with advice on [technology topic] was
really helpful! Would you be open to a Skype chat sometime? I’d love
to ask about career advice and what technologies you recommend
learning.

Best,

Stephanie

Informational interview about new company

Hello,

I’m an aspiring entrepreneur and I’ve loved reading your tweets,
they’ve given me a lot of hope and ideas. I’m currently working on
building out [brief description of company]. If you have time, I’d
love to ask questions around bootstrapping a small business (that’s
been one of my biggest challenges) and how to scale/grow in a smart way. Would you be free for a 30 minute Skype call?*

Stephanie

[Stephanie’s website if she has one]

Asking about a new field

Hello,

Writing cause I really liked what you were saying on Twitter about
[technology topic they’re experienced with]. This is something I’d
really like to learn more about actually—I work as an engineer at
Imaginary Company now but I never get to touch stuff like that—
would you mind if I asked you some questions over Skype sometime?

Stephanie

Offering unsolicited help to someone with less experience

Hello,

Saw your blog post on Technology Topic—really enjoyed it! I’ve
been working with that Technology Topic for several years now and just wanted to say if you ever need help feel free to ping me!

Stephanie

Meeting people at conferences & events

Conferences and events can feel like a hard thing to tackle when you’re not used to networking. (There are so many people, scary!)

But the beautiful thing about them is it is expected to network
professionally there. If you go up to a random person in a park and
start talking about your business idea, they are probably going to be
confused. But if you go up to a person at a tech event or conference and
start talking about your business idea, they’re going to get excited (and probably relieved that you broke the ice first!)

A conference is typically a large event, planned in advance, that
requires travel and days blocked out of schedules. It’s extremely normal
to plan networking meetings and events in advance for conferences. I
usually start a month before the event; occasionally several months in advance.

How long should the meeting be? A 30-minute meeting does not leave much
room for relationship building, but you can still get a lot done and is
ideal for meeting with busy people or for when you’re in the early stage
of business and not many people know of you. An hour is good for giving
buffer between events and building up a relationship. A meeting over a meal is typically longer than that.

Figuring out where to meet can be a challenge itself for large events. A
tip on that: coffee shops close to the conference can get quite
congested—hotel lobbies have much more room and often have more open
seats. If it’s in a warm climate, it’s also completely fine to meet at a
park. If you need more privacy or even more professionalism, you can
reserve a conference room, office, or professional space nearby for
meetings. If the person you’re meeting with is busier than you are, feel
free to suggest a spot but always offer to meet where is most convenient for them.

Since it’s often the longest open timeslot, try to always grab a meal
with a group—remember, people are there to network, so feel free to
gather one or two people you’d like to grab a meal with and tell them to
feel free to invite more of their friends/contacts.

Be visible about meeting up and open to spur-of-the-moment invites.
Announce you’ll be there on social media well in advance and again when
you get to the conference. Post updates on social media of talks you see
or events you go to. Talk to people and ask where they’ll be going next
or what events are happening.

Feel free to message people asking to meet up! Here are some examples
for meeting up at conferences, again assuming you’re asking over social
media with a well-developed profile. Notice you need less introductory text here, since it’s very expected to network:

Meeting people you otherwise wouldn’t be able to

Hello,

I’m a student at Imaginary University and I’m really interested in
computer graphics, and I saw you were going to be at Technology
Conference! If you’re free I’d love to talk with you about getting
into the industry and your work in graphics—would you have some time?

Best,

Stephanie

Meeting a peer

Hey,

I saw you’re going to be at Technology Conference—I’ll be there
too Monday-Wednesday! I’d love to grab coffee sometime if you have
some free time—I work at Imaginary Company doing [technology
description].

Stephanie

Starting a prospecting conversation

Hi,

I’m building a company that does Problem-They-Need-Solved ([link to
company website]), and I’d love to ask about your pipeline and see
what features are important to you if you have some time at Technology
Conference. I can be flexible, just let me know if you have some time that week!

Thanks,

Stephanie

Asking for advice

Hi,

I’m building a small company right now and learning so much about
marketing and pricing. I really admire what you’ve been able to build
with your company—would you mind if I asked you some questions over coffee at Technology Conference? Let me know if you have time open!

Best,

Stephanie

[link to company website]

Comporting yourself at events

What about for smaller events, or events within a conference? You can
always feel free to ask to meet up with someone in advance at an event,
but usually it’s best to meet them before or after to give them time to network in the short time of the event.

When you go to event, try to bring a business card, laptop with a demo
or video ready to play about your product—any way to try to deepen a conversation or make it easier to keep in touch with someone.

Approaching people you don’t know during an event can feel scary, and is
typically what people think of when they think of networking. I still
get nervous about it and I do a massive amount of networking—I much
prefer meeting with people one-on-one or in small groups. When I do go
to events I typically try to find the people standing alone, close my
eyes and take a deep breath, and introduce myself. I find that they’re
usually relieved that you broke the ice. Another way to approach someone
is to stand in a group and attentively listen to the person speaking—
don’t worry, you won’t look like you’re intruding, this is quite normal at networking events.

One note on online events: These exist too! You’ll typically see them in
the form of webinars and livestreams, originating on social media or in
other online communities. Ask people you talk to if they know of any.
Approaching people at these depends highly on the medium, but the same
general advice applies: feel free to join into conversations, direct message people you don’t know, and remember to keep in touch.

Interacting with people on social media

Obviously doing informational interviews and meeting people at events
can originate from a social media interaction—but how do you approach
someone on social media in the first place? What’s the general etiquette for social media?

Here are some tips:

The expectation in professional spaces is that after you are
following someone or otherwise connected, responding to their
posts is both allowed and encouraged. Everyone, at all levels of success,
likes knowing that their work is appreciated.

Try to respect peoples’ boundaries, and be especially cautious
if engagement isn’t reciprocal and you don’t have a relationship.
(Persistence is helpful in business; “ping someone every other day” is spammy.)

Remember a response is a first impression of you—when you
interact, stay positive and try to contribute something
meaningful, like linking to an article they might find interesting or bringing up a point they might not have thought of.

It is okay to message people you don’t know asking for an
informational interview.

It is okay to ask someone you have already established a
relationship with to share something you posted on their network,
but make more deposits in your karma bank than withdraws.

Host your own events and communities!

Hosting events and communities can be powerful ways to talk to people
and generate business. I’ve hosted many—sometimes they’re focused
dinners with potential customers, sometimes they’re community events focused around giving back.

At any event, I start by talking to a small group of people, each
one-on-one, to confirm their interest and be sure they’ll show up. If it’s an intimate dinner, this is all that’s needed.

If it’s a larger event this confirms that there is some interest and some
people committed to coming. Successful events nucleate around a core of early people,
much like successful movements.

This is also true of product adoption,
which is one reason why networking is so important. You can get your first
few users scrappily, when
most users won’t want anything to do with you, and then the fact that you have users gives everyone else safety to come.

For public events, feel free to reach out to local organizations or
companies to partner with. Companies are usually happy to donate space
for events. It’s free PR for them and helps with other business goals
like recruiting.

If it’s critical that the event be professional and polished and it’s a
larger event, hire an event planner. Or, if you have the budget, consult
with an event planner. Just trust me on this one. You can plan events
without professional help, but it’s always better to have someone who knows what they’re doing helping you.

Feel free to plan events around conferences, but you can also plan
events any time of the year and can travel to cities just to network at
events you’ve planned. There are all kinds of events you can plan around
your business: free classes around your product, public or private
customer events, trainings, dinners with high-profile potential
customers, etc. There are many events you can plan for the community,
too: free classes on technology or business, talk series, interactive workshops, career advice panels, etc.

Making the most of meetings

Congratulations, you’ve got yourself a meeting!

How to approach the ask

Many people you talk to are going to want to help you build your business. When and how should you ask for help?

There are lots of different styles of “asks,” introductions, and
conversation styles. Let’s go over some of them and discuss pros/cons.

Introducing yourself with a cold ask

A cold ask is introducing yourself with an immediate request for something.
People who aren’t very familiar with business believe sales to be all cold asks, all the time. That isn’t accurate, but there is a place for them.

Most people won’t be able to help you right away. A cold ask will filter
away anyone who can’t immediately help you—you won’t form a
relationship with them, they probably won’t come back to help you down
the road, they probably won’t refer you to someone they do know who can help you.

It can be tricky to craft and get right, especially since you’re
unlikely to get good feedback from the people you’re sending it to. If
you’re new to this, I recommend getting it reviewed by someone with
experience and starting with messaging a small number of people and
slowly expanding after judging reaction.

With this ask, it’s common advice to send several polite follow-ups.
If you do this poorly, it can be annoying. Done well, it is simply
helping another busy professional manage their schedule. Keep the follow-up simple, concise, and polite.

Hiya Steve,

Do you have 30 minutes this week to discuss whether we can improve
your asset pipeline?

Best,

Stephanie

Making cold asks is hard and awkward, particularly for people who
are sensitive to avoiding other people. On the flipside, it is efficient,
lets disinterest parties signal that easily, and makes sure that everyone is on the same page.

Consider a job fair. Everyone at the job fair is there with an objective:
they want to hire someone or they want to be hired. You don’t need to
spend a lot of time building a relationship prior to saying “Actually I’d like a job”—that would be borderline disingenuous. Just ask for the job.

Much more of life than early entrepreneurs is more like a job fair than
it is like a dinner party. Businesses exist to buy things and sell things.
You will buy things, including from cold asks, and often you will be
very happy with those things. Some interactions are very transactional, and that is okay, too.

Introducing yourself with a pitch about what you do

In professional spaces, when you’ve just met someone, you often don’t have a particular
goal in mind and don’t know if you can help them. You can break the ice by having both
parties introduce yourselves with a quick pitch. Get good at this. Pitching is a skill.

It took me probably six months to be able to describe my company in two compelling sentences—it’s not easy.

I used to start pitches with an explanation of GPU formats to give them a basis of understanding of our algorithm, then moving into the problem we solve. This wasn’t an appropriate amount of detail for most people I spoke too; it went over the heads of some and wasn’t obviously valuable to others. Now, I lead off with “Basis reduces download size and improves performance of apps.” Everyone involved in a software company in any capacity understands that those are both good things. If I know they have some familiarity with the field of compression, I’ll add “Basis reduces images to the size of JPEG, but 6-8 times smaller on the GPU. If you already use GPU-friendly compression, it can cut your image data in half!” That gives elaboration on the engineering case for basis and, while remaining comprehensible to a non-specialists, signals that I am capable of going arbitrarily deep if they want to.

Be brief. I can’t stress this enough. You’re starting a conversation
this way, and you have no idea how interested the person is going to
be—they don’t need your life story. This is why crafting a short, compelling pitch is key.

After you give your pitch, feel free to answer any questions they have,
then usually it’s a good idea to switch to showing interest in them. One
of the easiest ways to keep up a conversation is to be genuinely interested in someone and just enjoy getting to know them.

Introducing yourself casually

This is the trickiest one, and usually one you’ll see in social media.
It’s also an approach you’ll see in industries who are very allergic to
people appearing too “sales-y”—you can try to craft a pitch that
doesn’t sound sales-y, or you can just skirt around it and use this
approach. Selling software to video game companies can be like this, for instance.

You start by talking about something that is perhaps related to what you
do, but you don’t introduce yourself or your company. For instance, you
join a conversation talking about a programming topic in social media or
at an event, just actively contributing ideas and generating interest in what you do by doing that.

It can also happen in one-on-one conversations. You meet with someone in
the industry “just to catch up” or without a clear agenda—perhaps you
start by talking about industry news or what’s going on with them, and you may never get around to talking about what you do.

This approach to networking reminds me a little bit of selling a luxury
good, which is also why it works well in places that don’t like sales-y
approaches. Part of the mystique of luxury goods is that they’re so
innately desirable that they don’t need to be sold. This isn’t true,
but sellers of them affect a sort of indifference to whether any particular
transaction happens, because the product is so good that buyers exist
in abundance. People learn to associate this aloofness with success; they
learn to associate seeming desperation with failure. You generally don’t
want to seem desperate.

There are a couple keys to success with this approach that also can help
other approaches. One very important one is keeping it genuine. Don’t
act like you’re personal friends with someone if you aren’t. It is okay
to keep a relationship 100% professional and be genuine in that sense.
Don’t pretend to get excited about something you aren’t excited
about—you can share an opinion or article just for the sake of sharing
it and contributing to the conversation. Stay yourself, but also be
confident and positive.

The other part of being genuine is maintaining long-term relationships
even if someone can’t immediately help you, which ties into the next
point. Consistently follow up and plan on keeping in touch, even beyond
the needs of this business. Care about them as people, even if you don’t
check in super often. I realize this can be hard when you’re talking to
lots of people—that is one of the downsides of this approach—but
even checking in and chatting with someone every few months is extremely
powerful.

Hard versus soft asks

Let’s say you didn’t go with the cold ask right at the introduction. How do you bring up what you need?

“What you need” can be all sorts of things—a referral to other customers, a sale from the person you’re talking to, or consulting work.

There are two ways to approach it:

Examples of soft asks:

“We’re putting together our consulting calendar at the moment.”

“We’re looking for customers interested in our product.”

“We’re currently doing free evaluations of the product.”

Examples of hard asks:

“Do you need any consulting work done?”

“Do you know of anyone who could use this product?”

“Would you be interested in a free evaluation?”

After reading the other sections, you can probably guess what the
pros/cons of each are. A soft ask lets someone come to you with interest
and is good for people who don’t like sales-y approaches, the “luxury
good” mentality, and for someone who may not be able to help you. The
hard ask can be great when someone is expecting it, it cuts straight to the point, and it isn’t ambiguous about your needs.

A note of caution for all asks—you should respect people and their
time. If you genuinely aren’t interested in keeping in touch or hearing
about a person’s story or helping them out (which is often
understandable—for instance if you have to approach a huge number of
people in a limited time), it’s often better to go with the cold hard
ask right in the intro. A hard ask later in the conversation requires a
degree of respect, trust, and prior relationship building so the person doesn’t feel their time leading up to the ask was a waste.

Courtesies & follow ups

Feel free to hand someone a business card after a conversation or plan a
concrete follow-up if the meeting’s going well or you both have more to talk about.

It’s completely okay to follow up with someone frequently and have a
100% professional relationship. In fact, it is a part of staying
genuine. With some people you’ll catch up about their kids and home
life, with some people you’ll be great friends, and with some people
you’ll just talk business. Be aware of people’s boundaries and be aware that this is very normal.

A note on mentoring relationships and power dynamics

When you are mentoring someone, talking with someone more junior, or
someone in a position of less power, the power dynamic is going to be
very different from networking with someone you’d consider a colleague,
at your experience level, or more senior/powerful.

If the power dynamic is unbalanced in your favor, the person won’t feel
as comfortable saying no to your questions or resisting your
suggestions. Do your best to sense how they’re feeling, make them feel
comfortable, and have them suggest things, leaving options open.

Conclusion

Doing networking well, at its core, is about understanding people and treating both them and yourself with respect.

Always consider your particular situation and circumstances. And never
forget to pay it forward and use this advice to connect people less
experienced & privileged to opportunities.

I would love to hear about any networking tips you’d add or your
experiences with networking—find me on Twitter!

Wishing you the best!

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